The Way We Were
by madame.alexandra
Summary: On a Mexican sabbatical, Gibbs remembers his partnership with Jenny in sharp, sudden flashes of clarity.
1. Marseilles

_a/n: hi, pretty self-explanatory! Gibbs starts getting his memory back in short little snippets (mentioning key Jibbs places!)._

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><p><span><strong>Marseilles<strong>

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><p>The Baja sun blistered, and he struggled with the lethargy that accompanied humidity. He'd come out on the roof to work, to fix the shoddy shingles and pretend he was somehow fixing himself, but the beating of the sun's blaze only sucked at his energy, tried to convince him it was better to lay the hammer and nails down and bask in misery.<p>

He sat on the slanted, weathered old wood, vaguely unsure if it was sturdy enough to hold him up, and he stared tiredly at the glittering ocean waves as they slapped lazily on the sandy shore.

Why he had ever thought leaving work, leaving a daily routine that kept him occupied and his mind focused on – on anything but them – was a good idea, he didn't know, but he'd been wrong.

Memories returned erratically, slowly, aggressively – he pieced them together in the relevant years of his life that wearily came back to him, overwhelmingly made him remember how long it had been sine Kuwait, since Pendleton, since _them_.

He leaned back, ran his hands over the splintered, rough wood, and winced in the sun, trying to fathom some world beyond the sea's horizon where his life hadn't turned out like this –

-and he was struck, hard, by one of those elusive memories, quick flashes, then an immersion in a moment, and he knew it was one of those he'd been searching for, to make-up the lost years in between nineteen ninety-one, and the day he'd woken up –

* * *

><p><em>—he climbed down off the roof of the old, abandoned house, a blouse and a bra clutched in his hand. He barreled through the open glass window and was greeted by amused laughter; she lunged forward and took her things from him, holding them to her cheek.<em>

_"It worked," she muttered, grasping a thin, tattered sheet closer to her chest._

_He rolled his eyes._

_"You throw anything in the blisterin' sun for an hour, it gets dry," he retorted. "Can't fix the smell."_

_She buried her face in the clothing – stained a rich, dark coffee colour now – and shrugged, breathing in._

_"Coffee," she murmured. "I might start spilling it on all my clothes, if it makes them this aromatic."_

_"Aromatic?"_

_She ignored his sneer, and he crawled across the floor from the window, re-situation himself behind her on the bed. The quarters were cramped and humid; the edge of the rickety, four-poster bed was barely a foot from the only window – the window they used for surveillance – and it was hardly a surprise that after two days, they'd ended up in that bed together._

_He leaned against the uncomfortable, metal bars of the headboard and slid his legs around her, pulling her back against his chest. She rested her head against his shoulder and lifted the binoculars, glaring lazily into the lenses and watching the Lebanese ship they had their eye on._

_He lowered his lips to her shoulder, his hands running under her bare skin under the thin sheet, and she laughed quietly._

_"How many more days of this?" she murmured, eyes on the target._

_"Which this?" he asked smartly._

_The stakeout, or the unbelievable sex?_

_"Hmmm," she murmured lightly, shrugging her shoulders._

_"Stakeout ends in six days," he muttered, his lips, teeth, and tongue marking her collarbone, his hands moving between her legs under the sheet._

_She sighed and leaned back against him heavily. He didn't say anything about the second part, and she bit her lip, her eyes still on the target, her heart racing a little._

_"Don't stop," she murmured pointedly, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the binoculars._

_He smirked, his lips moving to her ear._

_"You satisfied yet?" he teased, feigning exasperation._

_She grinned, taking a moment away from the binoculars to tilt her head up, and meet his blue eyes. She licked her lips._

_"Every time the sweat dries, it cools off a little in here," she whispered huskily._

_He arched a brow at her._

_"I'm hot again," she said, her lips pursed fetchingly._

_He ran a hand through her hair, his hand moving under the blanket, and he bent to kiss her lips, embracing the suffocating heat of the August attic –_

* * *

><p>-he sat forward, and rubbed his face with his hands, wiping sweat and dirt and sand off his brow, sitting up, shaking his head.<p>

He kept remembering her, among everything else; she came back more strongly, more often, than any of his ex-wives – and he believed her now, that he'd had more wives, because now he could recall their names: Rebecca, Diane, Stephanie.

He knew her name, because she'd told him in the hospital – but she hadn't told him all this, she hadn't told him who she used to be to him, and he was trying to figure it out, trying to understand – what had happened –

"Probie!" groused Franks, glaring up from the deck. "You fixin' my goddamn roof, or you writin' a romance novel? I ain't heard a hammer in an hour!"

Gibbs shook himself, and reached for the tools.

What had happened, where had they been?

The place came to him, like a cold rush, a snap of memory –

_Marseilles_.

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><p><span><strong>Marseilles<strong>

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><p><em>-alexandra<em>  
><em>story #224<em>


	2. Serbia

.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Serbia<span>**

* * *

><p>"It's like a goddamn western, ain't it?"<p>

Franks laughed loudly and shook his head, pulling a thin metal spear from the roaring fire and letting the cool ocean air kill the flame that lit up sausage he'd been grilling.

"Two old dogs and an old fashioned grill," he snorted, eschewing utensils and biting right into dinner.

Gibbs smirked and shook his head, his eyes on the fire. He was silent as he pierced a slab of steak with metal prongs and lowered the beef over the fire – fire he'd built with leftover wood from his latest repair project.

Franks lit a cigarette with a flame, leaning precariously close to smoldering embers, and Gibbs looked over the ocean for a moment. He squinted into the blackness, trying to see where sky met water, and when he turned back his vision was fuzzy, blinded by the orange and yellow flicker that so drastically differed from the voluminous darkness of night.

He blinked his eyes, shook his head, and with a jolt he was suddenly in front of a different fire, and he wasn't on a beach, but he was in some sort of field –

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><p><em>It had been hard enough to start the damn fire with her hovering over him, fascinated to see it really could be done with just two twigs, but to stoke it, and ensure it stayed in the brick-lined, clumsily made pit, while she burrowed into his side was almost impossible.<em>

_He tried to shake her off, and she bit into his shoulder gently._

_"'M cold," she murmured, shivering for effect._

_"Go put some damn pants on," he retorted._

_She'd come out here to do something silly, something romantic – watch the stars – and noticed the little fire pit, and lamented their lack of lighter – and that's when he'd told her he could build her a fire._

_She sighed and rolled her eyes, smirking._

_"If you insist – " she teased, but he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her back._

_He tossed aside the long, knobby stick in his hand and sat down, pulling her to the dirty, dry ground with him. She tried to resist, but gave in, and tumbled against him, forcefully knocking him backwards._

_"Don't tell me you can weave a wigwam out of the tall grass," she whispered sarcastically, her legs splayed over his hips._

_He rolled his eyes and pushed her long red hair back, giving her a smug look._

_"Warmer?" he asked gruffly._

_"Mmm," she murmured, nudging his lips with hers and then grinning, her forehead resting against his, "might be warmer with some of that moonshine."_

_"That old stuff Callen left on the counter?" Gibbs grunted quietly. "Jesus, Jen, you think I'm gonna try somethin' some genocidal Serbs cooked up?"_

_"Scaredy-Cat."_

_He thrust her off him into a heap and went to the house to get the liquor, leaving her laughing and brushing her hair back. She inched closer to the fire while he was gone, letting it warm her, and when he came back, dirty old jar in hand, he stood for a moment and stared._

_It looked picturesque, her sitting in that field by the glimmering fire, in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Progorelica – like nothing could touch them; like nothing would touch them, not while they were here._

_He sat down behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. He handed her the liquor._

_"You first," he challenged, his voice low in her ear._

_His hands slid over her stomach and down to her thighs, playing with the wrinkled edges of the flannel shirt she was wearing – his flannel shirt, and nothing else – what would the agency think, of him letting his Probie run around like this, naked in Eastern Europe, with bullet shrapnel in her thigh?_

_His hands ran over the healing scar, and she tipped her head back, batting her lashes before she took a sip._

_"After that bullet, I can take anything," she murmured._

_She poured a brave amount down her throat, and closed her eyes, wincing. He laughed at her, and took it away, watching her struggle to swallow without coughing, and then he took his own sip, unbothered by the strength._

_She tilted her head back again, and he bent to kiss her, savoring her fire-warmed, moonshine-sweet lips._

_"Let's stay here," she murmured wistfully. "Let's never leave."_

_He had just nodded; content, then, to wallow in the anonymity of a countryside safe house in a forgotten world –_

* * *

><p>-the ocean crashed against the sand, coming precariously close to their feet and the fire, and Franks swore, leaping up.<p>

"Didn't know you liked your steak well done there, Probie," he growled, stamping out a cigarette and indicating Gibbs forgotten roasting spit.

Gibbs yanked the spear back, shaking his head a little – distracted; besieged – he hated how aggressively and poignantly memories of her came back to him; he didn't understand what had happened, how the woman in the hospital room was the same one in these flashbacks, these hidden moments.

The tall grass, the sprawling, eerily silent field – morbidly silent, even – where had they been, where was Progorelica? The city had come back to him, the village, but not –

"Serbia," he muttered out loud.

Serbia, and not too long after genocide had ravaged the eastern block.

"Hell, Probie," groused Franks, "You gonna start talkin' to yourself, then build your own damn hut. Town ain't big enough for the both of us."

Gibbs ignored him, and stared back into the fire again, holding the roasting spit loosely between his knees – had the firelight looked like her hair, or had her hair looked like the fire?

* * *

><p><span><strong>Serbia<strong>

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><p><em>-alexandra<em>


	3. Positano

_a/n: favorite so far. _

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><p><span><strong>Positano<strong>

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><p>He'd left behind smoky, chaotic, crowded bars when he'd gotten marred – the first time; the real time – and he didn't know why he was here now, why he kept letting Franks drag him out to this busted up old cantina.<p>

He drank beer, he inhaled cigar smoke, he listened to loud mariachi music, he watched the half-naked women stumble around, listened to them flirt – but he didn't enjoy it; he wasn't interested.

He wasn't interested in the sweet little number dancing on that tabletop in front of Franks, and he wasn't any more interested in the sharp, demurely clothed barmaid – Camilla Charo, Franks' special contact in the city.

He nursed a Corona and observed, hardly even interested in his own lack of curiosity about these women; he was still to absorbed in the aftermath of the explosion two months ago to care that he hadn't had contact with a woman since –

- he came up short; another thing he couldn't remember?

"You want another beer, Gringo?" Camila asked, winking at him slyly. She flicked a soft towel in the direction of the dancing girl. "No interested in Marisa?" she teased. "What's the matter, Leroy Jethro, stud like you cannot keep up with the _viejo pendejho_?"

She laughed at him bluntly, and Gibbs turned to glance at his old mentor, shaking his head in disbelief – Franks, at his age, acting like some kid fresh on liberty – but then, Camila had a point; where was Gibbs' libido, lost in the past?

He couldn't remember the last woman he'd been with, the last time he'd wanted someone – he lifted the beer to take a sip; Camilla slammed a glass down in a metal sink and the sound rang some sort of old bell –

* * *

><p><em>-she was slamming things around in the tiny kitchen. Ceramic banged on stone and water ran and metal clashed against plastic, and she muttered to herself, swearing, lines of frustration etching into her face.<em>

_"I'm not doing it for my health – if it were up to me, you could leave your bandages off all day, get an infection – get gangrene. I hope your torso falls off - but we need you for the mission," she went on and on, half to herself, half to him – she knew he was listening, "so Decker says I can't let you drop dead – but you won't sit still, you won't take your fucking antibiotics…"_

Slam, bang, crash_ – was she even washing the dishes, or just trying to give him headache that throbbed even harder?_

_He rolled his eyes and poured another glass of bourbon, and she shot him a nasty look._

_"S'all the medicine I need," he managed, gruff and hoarse – the deep, mildly infected bullet wound just under his left ribcage was killing him today, and she'd caught him letting it air out, exposing the ghastly hole to the Italian air._

_"…don't know if you've noticed, but this isn't the goddamn wild west, Jethro, you can't just drink whiskey and pretend it's penicillin – if someone hadn't already shot you, I'd do it myself – "_

_"That's a good one," he said dryly. "Diane used a golf club, but I think I could book you on a bullet."_

_She slammed something down and turned around._

_"This isn't funny!" she shrieked._

_His eyes widened, and she stormed over and took the whiskey violently. She downed it, licked her lips, and then threw the glass so hard it shattered into the sink._

_"You think you're tough, Jethro?" she asked, her voice threatening. "You think this turns me on, your bravado, you acting like it doesn't hurt?"_

_He grit his teeth, and she pushed him, looking a little too satisfied when he winced. He grabbed her hands to keep her from doing it again, and held her fingers tightly, and she wiggled them._

_"Hurts, doesn't it?" she murmured tightly. "You can give me that brave face all day, Gibbs, but you wake up with chills at night, and you beg for meds – and it's because you tricked me," she snapped._

_"Tricked you?"_

_"You told me you were better, you told me – "_

_He ran his hands up her arms and touched her shoulders, glancing down at the bullet wound – it had gotten worse, and it was because he hadn't taken her or it seriously; he had tried to turn their banishment to this villa into a sexy getaway –_

_"Aw, c'mon, Jen," he tried, half-heartedly. "You wanted it."_

_His attempt at convincing her he was fine by showing her in bed hadn't gone down as planned –_

_"I want you to get better," she said, shaking him off. She stepped back. "I want you to get better, Jethro!"_

_"Thought you wanted my torso to fall off," he retorted dryly._

_She turned back to the sink, and she started picking up glass. She swallowed hard, and he saw how tight her muscles were, how stressed and worried she was, and he felt a pang of guilt._

_She shook her head._

_"Memory is trying to inform me that I like your torso," she murmured, she glanced at him, and shrugged, "maybe if you take your medicine, let yourself heal, next time you can fuck me for longer than four seconds."_

_He glared at her, striding forward with a growl, turned on the sink water, and splashed it up to her aggressively – didn't lack of ability to perform get excused if you'd just taken a bullet –_

* * *

><p>-he remembered it clearly, too clearly, not only that fight, but the night she'd referenced, the night he'd stumbled through sex , handicapped by a bullet wound and an anti-biotic dulled sex drive –<p>

And he remembered her face, the look that had always been in her eyes those few weeks – fear, anxiety, concern, while he'd only been aggressive, combative, annoyed that he was being coddled –

He found himself staring at that dancer, topless now, wondering if he stared long enough, if her long brown hair would turn red, and he'd be back in –

_Positano._

Positano, Italy, that's right – a haven for him to recover in, before they went somewhere else on their clandestine tour of Europe – every time something came back to him, the question of just how much she'd meant lingered frustratingly in his mind –

Franks leaned over the bar, grinning, rapping his knuckles for another shot.

"Probie," he drawled. "You got any singles? Lola's up next."

Franks doubled over cackling, and Gibbs drained his beer, swallowing down an Italian villa, in a small town, in a year that had slipped away.

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><p><span><strong>Positano<strong>

* * *

><p><em>-alexandra<em>


	4. Czech Republic

_a/n: i don't like this chapter, but i want to write a fic on this part of their lives so i hesitated to use actual deep material i may want to use later. _

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><p><span><strong>Czech Republic<strong>

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><p>Franks, exhibiting and endless knack for carelessness, came up on the ocean-side cabin with a shout, hardly bothering to check and see if his houseguest was using some sort of dangerous, sharp tool.<p>

Startled, and balanced precariously on a ladder against the side of the house, Gibbs swore violently and, in an effort to keep himself from plummeting off the ladder, threw himself forward onto the roof and suffered a nasty, deep cut on his forearm from the saw in his hands. He abandoned the tool and slid down the ladder, storming into the house cursing. He swiped a rag and started to stem the copious blood flow. Franks – naturally – whistled and the sight and laughed.

"Damn, Probie, you got to get rid of that jumpy nature!" he mocked – Gibbs had been less aware of his surroundings since the May coma; less able to pick up on an approaching person, friend or foe.

"Here," growled Franks, yanking Gibbs out onto the front porch. He jerked the towel away and looked critically at the gash.

"Bleedin's not gonna stop," Gibbs said dully.

"Lemme get my lighter," Franks said, resigned – he'd have to cauterize it.

He came back out with a bottle of vodka and a cigarette lighter, and handed Gibbs the bottle.

"Drink while I burn," he snorted. "Unless you wanna go into the city?"

Gibbs waved his hand – he was fine with home treatment; it wasn't like he hadn't experienced worse in the military, or in the jungles of Colombia. He tipped the vodka back into his mouth – it tasted cold, and unforgiving, like - Eastern Europe - ?

Franks lit the flame against his wound and he sucked in his breath hard – that felt like Eastern Europe, too –

* * *

><p><em>The most chilling part about the disastrous result of the meet was the lack of sirens: no sound broke the frigid, biting night air of the city, no flashing lights or indication that help was coming –<em>

_It was just him, alone, in the icy, deep snow, waiting for back up from another agent, trying to tourniquet a bad bullet wound with a ripped up scarf._

_When Callen got there, Gibbs had his thumb between her teeth, forcing her to bite down, trying to keep her quiet and awake all at once._

_"Where?" Callen asked._

_"I told you, the thigh," snapped Gibbs, standing. Callen was quick to help him get their female partner off the ground, both of them huddling together. "Doctor?"_

_"I got into contact with one of the other anti-Soviets in the area," Callen hissed. He hesitated. "He's Mossad and I've never met him, but – "_

_Gibbs shrugged; it didn't matter._

_It felt like they walked for days, trying to move quickly and cover up a bright red, horrifying blood trail, and when Callen dragged them into a small apartment on the outskirts of a rich area, a door was locked quickly and a dark-skinned man seemed to appear out of nowhere._

_Gibbs sat down at the head of the bed, her head in his lap, helping the doctor to undress her._

_He saw hands moving quickly, and then he got up to help, knelt down at eye-level with his Probie, and took her hand. She looked unconscious – the doctor lit something, shoved something hot and burning into her leg, and Jenny screamed, twisting violently to the side._

_Gibbs leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers._

_Her eyes closed tightly and she moaned hoarsely._

_"I think I'm dying," she managed, coughing, her voice raw. "What happened?"_

_"You're hit," he murmured, trying to jolt her memory – shock must be hiding it from her._

_"The guy?"_

_"Gibbs shot him," Callen piped up. "Hold still, Shepard, he's got to cauterize again."_

_Callen was blunt, and didn't count for her. Gibbs reached forward and wrapped on arm tightly and securely around her shoulders, anchoring her to him so she wouldn't twist around or squirm, and her fingers moved weakly against his shirt._

_She cried out again, dissolving into a weak sob._

_"Pain meds?" Gibbs demanded harshly._

_Instead, they threw him a bottle of vodka._

_He tipped some into her mouth, and she coughed, her lips pressed together, her eyes red._

_"I think I'm dying," she said again, her breath catching painfully._

_He shook his head, put the bottle down, and spilled it. He moved closer, ignoring what Callen and the doctor were doing at her groin, his lips on hers, then on her jaw, then close to her ear._

_"You can't, Jen," he said, half-heartedly, trying to be light-hearted. "What would I do then?"_

_She moved closer to him, trying to shy away from the pain, and he tightened his grip – he pretended it was a joke, but it wasn't; he knew it wasn't –_

* * *

><p>-he knew suddenly and abruptly that at that point in their partnership, so long ago and so lost in a haze of repressed heartache and lost time, it hadn't been a joke at all, that he'd come to think he couldn't live without her.<p>

Had they been in Russia? Vodka was Russian –

-but no, they'd been in the Czech Republic; he remembered more now, because NCIS kept calling it the former Czech Republic, and Jenny had raged that politically, that never made sense – they'd been in a suburb of Prague, when for three days she'd lingered on the threshold of life and death.

"You goin' female on me, Probie?" snapped Franks, slapping the back of his head. "Little blood makin' you queasy, can't hold your vodka?" he laughed.

Gibbs shook his head, tried to clear away his thoughts – he didn't want that memory back; he didn't want that fear and terror back, he didn't want to remember that he'd resigned himself to watching Jenny die just when he'd accepted that she might save him like no other woman since Shannon had –

Maybe that's why, he thought to himself – maybe that place, that night, that bullet wound – was why he found it so hard to remember, why something had happened to break them up, to put them where they were now – .

He remembered the Czech Republic, and he remembered why he'd tried to mitigate her, and who she was to him.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Czech Republic<strong>

* * *

><p><em>-alexandra<em>


	5. Paris

_an: honestly franks has been my favorite part of all of these because gibbs is having such existential moments and franks is in the background like 'lol shit probie u got feelings again? idiot.' _

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><p><strong><span>Paris<span>**

* * *

><p>"Why the hell are you goin' back now?"<p>

Franks' annoyed demand was loud to his ears, but he ignored it. He was packing, he had cash for the ticket in his pocket, and his mind was unchangeable.

"What the hell did she say to you?" Franks snapped.

He grit his teeth, shaking his head.

"Ain't no use goin' back, Probie," he growled. "Best thing I ever did was quit."

Gibbs ignored him still. The phone Camilla had left with them lay abandoned on the cot, and Gibbs rubbed his jaw as he picked and chose carefully the sparse things he'd be taking.

"Be back," he grunted, knowing it was a lie.

"No, you won't," Franks said bluntly. "I know you, Probie," he said dully. "You go back, it'll suck you back in. You ain't got nothin' else."

Gibbs grit his teeth.

"What's that lady director got on you?"

Gibbs shook his head.

"It wasn't her."

Franks scoffed, and Gibbs knew he didn't believe the statement – but it was true; it hadn't been that elusive, nostalgic woman on the phone, it had been someone much younger, someone much fresher in his mind and much more definable in terms of what she meant.

_I thought you might … save me?_

It didn't matter if he was ready to go back yet; it didn't matter if he was healed or if he was capable of doing this job again, or if he would ever be the same; _that_ was the great Ziva David begging for help, for mercy, and he wasn't going to let her down.

"I have to go," he said firmly, without argument. "I have to – " he said again, and paused, leaning heavily over his rucksack, closing his eyes tightly –

* * *

><p>…I have to …<p>

_-written somewhere on scrawling paper, in the midst of so many other pleading, and justifying, and alternately cold and warm words, were those – demanding understanding, begging for absolution –_

…I have to…

_He remembered those words on folded, neat stationary; he remembered everything she'd written, everything that had been contained in the pristinely folded letter in the leather coat; he remembered the way her hair had looked the day she left, and what colour lipstick she'd worn, and he remembered how the scent of her perfume had never really left him, not on the plane, not ever._

_He remembered their last night in Paris – desperate, secluded, heated, intimate, infused with heartache he had perceived, but hadn't understood until she was gone the next day; he remembered her, sleeping next to him, fitfully, why he lay awake staring at the ceiling in some sort of stark fear, and dread – what would he do with her, once they got back. Could he do it? Could he make sure she wouldn't be like the others?_

_He remembered things had been tense since the Czech Republic, since Serbia, since her injury spooked him off, and reading that letter, he had been angry – angry at himself, angry at her for never giving him a chance – even if he knew, in the roots of his heart, that he'd have destroyed her, and at his own expense._

_"Jethro," she'd whispered, her lips close to his ear, her nails digging into his back. "What are you doing to me?"_

_He remembered the last glass of bourbon they'd shared, and the way she'd looked at him when he'd joked about her moving in—he remembered everything, the full spectrum of their partnership, how messy and chaotic it had been, how they had stumbled and scraped their knees, all just to sate the lust – how unbearable, overwhelming, it had been, to discover that lust wasn't the only thing there._

_"I love you!" she'd said in Paris, standing on a bridge, her hair caught in the wind. She'd looked resigned, uncertain, almost angry, and very pale. "What do you think about that?" she'd asked hoarsely. _

_He'd laughed._

_"That'll be the day."_

_That, there - he remembered that sharpest of all; that fatal mistake - that nail in the coffin._

_He read the letter over and over, replaying snapshots of Europe in his mind, forcing himself to hate her, to vilify her, to blame her, because that was so much easier –_

* * *

><p>-Gibbs opened his eyes and stared down at his half-packed bag, his jaw clenched tight.<p>

He remembered her leaving; he remembered how it had ended, and he remembered the parts that had been his fault, more clearly than he ever had.

In a moment of nothing but pure clarity, he acknowledged his part in the end of the affair, and he read the words of the letter that seemed to be tattooed on his eyelids and stitched into his skull and standing there, in the Mexican heat, on the verge of returning for savior's sake –

He understood who she was; who she had been to him, and who he had wanted her to be – before he balked, shut down, let Shannon's fate scare him into never letting his guard down again.

He understood why she had left, and why things were the way they were now.

He swore under his breath; his heart ached in his chest at what he'd lost, what he'd let slip away.

He remembered Paris, and everything about it, and everything about Paris – was Jenny Shepard.

Franks lit a cigarette behind him, and shook out ashes on the cabin floor.

"You look like you seen a goddamn ghost, Probie," he growled, thumping him on the back. "Whatsa matter – finally realize you're in love with that mule-headed lady director?"

Franks cackled, a hoarse, smoker's laugh, and Gibbs set his jaw, his blood racing.

He had to go back; he had to – and it wasn't just for Ziva, or DiNozzo, or McGee, the people he owed it to; he had to go back because it was what was best for him, and if nothing else – he had to find some way to tell her that he understood now, he'd remembered Paris and everything in between –

He thought about how she'd looked in the hospital, when he only looked at her like she was a blank slate of a woman, no one significant, and he had to at least let her know he remembered the way they were.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Paris<span>**

* * *

><p><em>i also wanted to allude to 'Shalom' because that's my favorite episode of NCIS ever, period.<em>  
><em>anyway, hope y'all liked this! i literally wrote 4 out of 5 of these 10 minutes before posting, so there's that.<em>

_-alexandra_


End file.
